With a little cry of horror she recoils from them. Perhaps her
nerves are more out of order than she knows, perhaps the long fast
and long drive here, and her reception from her guardian at the end
of it--so different from what she had imagined--have all helped to
undo her. Whatever be the cause, she suddenly covers her face with
her hands and burst into tears.

"Take them away!" cries she frantically, and then--sobbing heavily
between her broken words--"Oh, I see how it is. You don't want me
here at all. You wish I hadn't come. And I have no one but you--and
poor papa said you would be good to me. But you are _sorry_ he made
you my guardian. You would be glad if I were _dead!_ When I come to
you in my trouble you tell me to go away again, and though I tell
you I am hungry, you won't give me even some bread and butter! Oh!"
passionately, "if _you_ came to _me_ starving, I'd give _you_
things, but--you----"

_"Stop!"_ cries the professor. He uplifts his hands, and, as though
in the act of tearing his hair, rushes from the room, and staggers
downstairs to those other apartments where Hardinge had elected to
sit, and see out the farce, comedy, or tragedy, whichever it may
prove, to its bitter end.

The professor bursts in like a maniac!



CHAPTER VIII.